Saturday, December 31

I wish you all a creative, fulfilled and joyful New Year. May our world move one step closer to be the sparkling star of peace and contentment it aught to be. I know it's a tough one but you, the "becoming" teachers, are the guardians of the future - not the scientist, neither the politician.

The seed you will plant bears fruit for decades to come, something to be proud and humble of at the same time. You are not my hope, you are my certainty!All the best!

Love, Lukas.

Friday, December 30

President Bush defends spying on its citizens as critical move to saving American lives. He said some of the 11 September hijackers inside the US had communicated with associates outside before the attacks - but the US had not known that until it was too late.The New York Times reported earlier in December that Mr Bush had signed a secret presidential order following the attacks on 11 September 2001 and thus it allowed the National Security Agency to track international telephone calls and e-mails of hundreds of people, without referral to the courts.

This is of course all absurd. If I were to be a terrorist, I would find ample ways to get my messages through to my collaborators. There are so many ways to evade any kind of control or spying that these new measures of Bush are just a useless fart that blows into the face of good willed citizen. Let me give you just one example of how to evade government spying, and it is a pretty lame one as is, there are more sophisticated ways... 1. Take a nude picture of a woman, blow it up in Photo Shop or whatever else you use2. Scribble a message on "her" nipples3. Shrink the picture and post it on any old porn site4. Let your culprits know where to look for the info by informing them through a public phone payed by a phone card5. Get feedback on a blog that is mundane in nature, let's say: collecting post-stamps6. Access the blog in a public library or even better on a private wireless network with your laptop7. Change communication channels and methods regularly Bottom line, there is no way that ANY agency is able to filter out the bad stuff, even if it were legal.Since it is not legal anyway - impeach the bastard who is responsible for this, he has no right to snoop around!OK, enough ranting for today

Work?I don't have to work.I don't have to do nothingbut eat, drink, stay black, and die.This little old furnished room'sso small I can't whip a catwithout getting fur in my mouthand my landlady's so oldher features is all run togetherand God knows she sure can overcharge -Which is why I reckon I doeshave to work after all.

Iraq's largest oil refinery has been shut down following death threats to tanker drivers, jeopardising supplies of electricity across northern Iraq.The oil ministry said the shutdown at Baiji was costing $20m a day.The ministry said it hoped the refinery, which has been out of action since the weekend, would be back up and running within days."Efforts are being made to convince the drivers to return to work," a spokesman said.The Baiji refinery normally produces 8.5m litres (2.2m gallons) of petrol per day, along with 7.5m litres of diesel.Oil distribution has been further disrupted by storms that have prevented exports being shipped from the Basra terminal in the south, Reuters said.Although billions of dollars have been spent on infrastructure since Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, fuel and electricity production have not reached the levels maintained before the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Elsewhere in Iraq, about 12 Shia Muslims were killed by insurgents after apparently failing to heed warnings that they should move out of their homes in the mainly Sunni town of Latifiya, about 30km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, officials said.The victims were reported to be members of the same extended family.However there were differing reports of the incident and who was involved. "A number of gunmen broke into three houses in Latifiya at dawn on Thursday, took 12 males aged between 20 to 40 and put them into a minivan owned by one of the victims, and machine-gunned them," Iraqi Army Capt Ibrahim Abdullah told Associated Press.The AFP news agency said 14 people were killed, some of them women.Reuters said the killings took place inside a house, where intruders slit the throats of 11 men and women.

Also on Thursday, a suicide bomber killed four police officers and wounded five at a checkpoint near the interior ministry in Baghdad, officials said.The attacker was dressed in a police uniform and blew himself up as police cars were entering the ministry, a police source said.Meanwhile, a web statement attributed to the militant group al-Qaeda in Iraq said it was holding five Sudanese hostages.The group said it had "arrested five employees of the Sudanese embassy in Baghdad, including diplomats".It said the Sudanese government had "48 hours to clearly announce it is breaking off diplomatic relations with the [Iraqi] government... Otherwise the government must assume responsibility for sacrificing its diplomats".

(source BBC and Reuters)________________________________________________________________You know very well my thoughts on this. To put it in a nutshell again: The US has no case to win in Iraq, instead merely chooses the path to bleed to death. So, kiss the empire and democracy goodbye as we knew it! Human folly has no borders.Does the sacrifice of 30,000 civilian deaths in Iraq (and god knows how many military personels on both sides) bring justice to this mess? Saddam gradualy looks like a saint to me. What are we (the US) gonna say after 100,000 are dead - victory!For what???????????________________________________________________________________

Thursday, December 29

To President Bush at the start of the first Gulf WarThis thin-lipped king with his helmeted headRemembers the quirky fits of lightThat temper the cobra. No, the temper of the doveDoes not fit him; and nothing in the worldCan bring him to bless. He will not feed,Nourish or help; and his rabbity handLifted in the fading light of the hemlocksWaves to them, gestures to the young to die.

I was intrigued by the first Gulf War in it's insecurity of it's initial mission.After all, Saddam, by invading Kuwait, was to certaine vital access in the Gulf to have his oil shipped out because Kuwaities denied access to ports.Well, he might have been a brutal dictator, an asshole and a murderer - that still does not give the US a "green card" to invade Iraq a second time around.The second "gulf war" will be the end of the US as we know it.LZ.

Friday, December 23

I just hope people will become more peaceful and stop acting like savages, that is my wish for this season.Well, so - the girls are back, save and sound, making breakfast with bacon & eggs. Some of your vegetarians might puke, but it is not about your eating preferences really. It is about feeling at home where you happen to be. Got to get a Christmas tree today and let the girls decorate it. It will be marvelous!My joy is where others can be joyful.

Tuesday, December 20

So, Julia the fine sculptress finally concluded her stone here and is leaving with it to find a place in the "Big Apple", Brooklyn is her first choice right now. The Vermont marble turned out to be an exquisite sculpture.Her presence and also Lawson's earlier was a blessing. The picture of the previous post describes them both while giving attention to my now missing dog. Ahhh...Tomorrow I'll be picking up my daughter and the exchange student from JFK - that will be grand and I am looking forward to it. Having three females under my roof will be interesting but also a bit hectic....And then there is Christmas, an other hectic time. Must learn to live with all of this.

Monday, December 19

Been home now for a few days, combed the woods, searched for tracks, talked to all the neighbors, informed the warden - the animal clinics and so on ... but alas, no trace of my dog Sunrise. Very strange indeed. That dog stayed around the house all the time, never left his turf. All I can think of now is that a stranger picked him up, lured him away. There are crazy people out there who would do such a thing. But why?I miss him dearly! It is astonishing to notice how fond we grow to our domesticated animal friends. The bond we weave goes beyond rational explanations. Perhaps animals are just "themselves", staying within the boundaries of their particular nature - not like humans, often pretending and casting an image of what they are not, trying to fool their surrounding with shadow images of their own insecurities.Do we like pets because they never lie?

A brave male student knitted his pony, then attempted to ride it to NYC. He made it back alright, but his adventures are still unknown to us.For now I took my own transportation means at hand and left the College behind until an other course awaits me in February. Fair the well 'til then...

Thursday, December 15

It is amazing what these students can do. Some of them have hardly done anything in clay or worked in an other three-dimensional medium. The course at Sunbridge is ending tomorrow and three weeks seemed to have past like three days. Time flies, when you are having a good time.

Tuesday, December 13

Tookie the former head of a violent gang in West-LA now faces death, not by his opponents in the street, but sanctioned by US law. Arnold, the former body-builder and movie cartoon figure from films like "Exterminator" has the chance as governor of California to either pardon or to exterminate him. But you know, it's not that easy. Tookie had a revelation and transformed his previous anger into constructive energy to help people in troubled areas to fight violence with peaceful means. His series of eight books against gang-violence is now even used in elementary schools across the US to educate young people about the dangers of gang activities. For this work he has received an award from President Bush, and he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times! But it doesn't matter if Tookie has redeemed himself from his past gang activities and now is a pioneer in the work of turning youth away from destructive gang life, what matters is that the United States is still stuck with medieval practices of hanging the guilty by the rope, or by modern methods using the syringe loaded with deadly poison.

..............................................

It is Monday evening and I just visited the BBC news website. There it says quoting Arnold:

"After studying the evidence, searching the history, listening to the arguments and wrestling with the profound consequences, I could find no justification for granting clemency," Mr Schwarzenegger said.

So what that means, is that "Tookie" Stanley Williams will be executed tomorrow (Tuesday Dec. 13, 2005)

Besides the profound issue around the question of capital punishment that goes beyond the boundaries of California .... Arnold just wrote his own death sentence!!! (of course politically). He will now not be voted in to an other term in office.

"Oahil boee back" is what we knew from him in the past. But the old Austrian saying from his home-country: "Geht's alle scheissen" might fit his present attitude perfectly.

Saturday, December 10

Who is to say that winter starts at a fixed given date?

The picture on the right is taken in my neck of the woods, the picture on the left describes a brave soul in Sunbridge to create "Snowhenge."I feel like that beast, chewing on some dried out grass while being covered with little hexagon shaped frozen flakes."Snow day" at the College on Friday made me come home earlier than planed. Was good, got a lot of "exercise" shoveling snow.On the political front there is not much to report. In Canada Clinton attacked a central plank of the Bush administration's resistance to targets for cutting emissions - that it would harm the US economy. If the US "had a serious, disciplined effort to apply on a large scale existing clean energy and energy conservation technologies... we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets easily in a way that would strengthen, not weaken, our economies," he said.Global warming and melting ice, he suggested, could lead to a future climate conference in Canada being held on "a raft somewhere".Yeah, very funny - but ah, we should take it to heart. In the mean time the conference in Montreal came to the conclusion "that we all should talk more" in the coming years. Good one- sounds like: Play me this song over and over again until we drown. "What's love got to do with it ... uhhps, "what's talk got to do with it ... it's just a second hand emotion"...Talk on for years to come. Sweet, it will produce, no change whatsoever.

"Elections" are coming up in Iraq in a few days, let's see how that will play out. I predict: Nothing at all!Saddam already stated he wouldn't mind to get executed and hanged - there I'll predict that he will be seen by people, even his foes, as a martyr for the cause towards the creation of a truly independent Iraq. We'll see...

On the homefront, the US is still struggeling to explain and justify secret detention facilities abroad, run by the CIA. There is this example of this lousy informant who got captured by the US in Afghanistan, brought to Jordan to be tortured - and as a result gave some bogus info about Iraq to ease his pain ... Turned out that this guy was a key "inteligence info" for the Bush administration to justify the war on Iraq.Ok,I could give you some explanations why I think this is happening under our eyes while nobody can do anything about it. I will spare you with this, but belive me I am sort of outraged by the present developments.

Friday, December 9

Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I've tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.

Robert Frost

(pictures are from the students who put up a self-written play about the conquistadores, describing the invasion of the Spaniards flooding South America with the intent to capture the gold and convert every living soul to live by the rules of the catholic church)

Monday, December 5

Sometimes I really wish I had my camera around all the time.Went to this Irish pub in New Jersey (one of these places where you still can have a Guinness and contemplate while having a smoke)...Anyhow, I met this lady - a wonderful woman. She was sipping her Martini and as I left, she was determent to hold my hands. Oh, how I loved that - since I was adoring HER hands for quite a while before. I wished so much that I could have taken a picture of her, and especially her hands.It turns out that she will celebrate her 106th birthday next April - no kidding, her 60 year old daughter was there to and confirmed it, so did the bartender who knows her quite well.I need to take some pictures of her, and talk to her some more. She was absolutely adorable, bright, and totally present.Imagine all the things you can look back to if you were born in 1900 and your memory and mind is still acute.

Saturday, December 3

The students are not aiming to "become an artists" or such, therefore it seems more important to have everyone experience the joy of fulfillment and also the limitations of that what is viable in the visual arts in such a short time.To form a human head in clay. or any other material for that matter, is quite a challenge. It makes us aware of how and where the sense organs live. What are the eyes, they go out and in. Receiving and casting. What is the mouth, breathing in and speaking out - and so on...

Monday, November 28

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was the head of the German Theosophical Society from 1902 until 1912, at which time he broke away and formed his Anthroposophical Society. He may have abandoned the "divine" (theo-) wisdom for the "human" (anthro-) wisdom, hence Anthroposophy. Anyhows, I find it interesting that he stated below written words long before woman's emancipation movements got wind in their sails. More than eight decades later, his statement might seem as a "fart", but imagine yoursel in the time of the turn of the last century. Would you have had the guts to have uttered those words? (from "Philosophy of Spiritual Activity).

"The social position of women is for the most part such an unworthy one because in so many respects it is determined not as it should be by the particular characteristics of the individual woman, but by the general picture one has of woman's natural tasks and needs. A man's activity in life is governed by his individual capacities and inclinations, whereas a woman's is supposed to be determined solely by the mere fact that she is a woman. She is supposed to be a slave to what is generic, to womanhood in general. As long as men continue to debate whether a woman is suited to this or that profession "according to her natural disposition," the so-called woman's question cannot advance beyond its most elementary stage. What a woman, within her natural limitations, wants to become had better be left to the woman herself to decide."=======================================================================

I write this now because I am teaching presently at a College that is inspired and enthused by Rudolf Steiner's works. Well, I teach the "visual arts", but believe me, a sound approach to be creative with students and children will be the path of the future. "The Brain" is not the center of the universe, and certainly not the center of a developing human mind.

Saturday, November 26

I want to know how it will be Me and her or you and me You both sit there with your long hair flowing Your eyes alive, your minds are still growing Saying to me What can we do now that we Both love you, I love you too But I don't really see Why can't we go on as three

You are afraid, embarrased too No one has ever said such a thing to you Your mother's ghost stands at your shoulder Got a face like ice just a little bit colder Saying to you Can not do that it breaks all the rules You learned in schools

But I don't really see Why can't we go on as three

You know we love each other it's plain to see There's just one answer comes to me Sister lovers, some of you must know about water brothers And in time maybe others So you see what we can do If we try something new, that is if you're crazy too

And I don't really see why can't we go on as ... three --------------------------------------------Crosby.

Friday, November 25

Yes, so we had a great feast, we shared we sung and we laughed. It is healing to be in good company!

We had a great feast, all the givings and the takings. Played a bunch of music, that is always good - from polka to rap, from blues to classic and folk to punk. Yes, that is always good.Ttried to rescue a bird today, not an eagle, not a turkey. Looked like some kind of dove, but what do I know... Flew away from where she hovered close to our garage wall before I could catch her/him. Wish the bird good journeys.Peace in that spirits, the dove might prevail. Let's eat turkeys and get rid of the hawks, at least the hawks that presently rule our nation.

Thursday, November 24

THANKSGIVINGprobably the most proliferate of holidays in the US, more so than Hanukah - Christmas and all the others.Somewhat bizarre if you think about it. Thanksgiving is based on the event where the pilgrims and the indians shared their bounty in peace. Thereafter the slaughter of the "red-nation" took its inevitable course, killing more American Indians than Hitler managed to gas Jews.Let's not ponder about the past too long. But how is Thanksgiving celebrated today? Families gather and share their "what"???? Thanksgiving has almost escalated to a consumer frenzy of not only stuffing the turkey, but stuffing yourself with obese amounts of food.The spirit of Thanksgiving is centered around a bird, the turkey. A peaceful creature.America has presently centered around the spirit of the eagle; a less peaceful creature.Time will come when the "turkey" will get its honored space again.In the mean time it is snowing in our neck of the woods, "white thanksgiving" perhaps a good omen.

Wednesday, November 23

Some of you might know the teacher William Ward, he works at Hawthorne Valley where Walli is teaching as well.He had a lump removed last week from his brain. They don't quite know yet if it was cancerous. We'll cross our fingers and send him healing thoughts. In any case below letter is from him, dated November 22. I thought it to be an appropriate Thanksgiving contribution.------------------------------------------------

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

What would you do if you received the tremendous outpouring of love that rose like the West Wind and came in my direction? I reflect it back to you, and say with a big smile on my face, "Thank you from the center of my heart."

My family thanks you with me for your 10,000 kindness, prayers, offer of help, and practical goodness. Thank you especially for the great Prayer Wheel. We are friends. We are community. All our relatives are here! Thanksgiving!

In honor of your gift of love to me there is a gift I make, my gift of love to you. These gifts are each other's mirror. And we realize that everyone is in the sunlight, including William, who feels, "God, I love this place. Look how people treat you when you need a friend! Anyone would do anything, day or night, to help out!"

Let us all pass through this circle - the loving embrace of our friends. When the chips are down, the food chain starts!

Love to each of us from each of us (you do the geometry)

PROTECTIONI have been given a gift.I am Scrooge reborn. (I know it's hard to think of me that way). I am living in silence and growing thankfulness in my heart and home. We will find a time to share. But right now, I am keeping a peacful center. Oh, the beauty of Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 20

it is interesting, I salvaged the ice cover in a bucket that was standing overnight in the now chilly nights. A maple leaf froze perfectly.I made myself comfortable in a new room at Sunbridge. It is still a bit bare, but that will change in time. Last weeks work for maintenance at "Three Fold" was good. I feel my life-juices coming back due to the opportunity of using my body, doing some physical work again. And the sweet thing is, that it is not me who has to decide what has to be done. I guess some of us go through those periods in life, where we call all the shots (freelance) and then go back to a frame of mind where others or an employment structure is invited to tell you what to do. It's like a sinus-curve, a frequency that has to go up and down in a harmonious rhythm - or into the red, then into the blue, then repeat itself. The failure of many things we try to achieve in life is due to our stubbornness not to truthfully "ride" these waves, go with a good flow as they say. We tend to get stuck on an oscillating entity that serves us well in the moment and secretly we hope so much that it will last forever (or at least a long time) until we realize that the next rejuvenating "wave" has already passed us by...Metamorphosis, transition, change, in a fluid though still linear way - is embracing the reality of our earth-existence.The "spiritual path" of each individual is an whole other story, let's not get into that now, though I do feel compelled to remark before I close, that the "spiritual-path" has nothing to do with a linear approach - it is omnidirectional.

Thursday, November 10

It's fridig here, snowflakes this evening. Vinal Haven is tomorrows destination. Six hour car ride, then an hour and a half on the ferry.Will be a blast though, lots of warmth, great people, lots of music, and good food...What more can you ask for?!